J O U R N E Y ’ S
HERB POHL PADDLED THE LAST DAY OF HIS LIFE ALONE. Working his way solo down the north-eastern Lake Superior shore, he braved the fog, refraction waves and rolling swells of this inland sea. Herb would have told you himself that he was
long past his best before date. His knees were be- ginning to trouble him under heavy loads and his arms no longer had the brutish strength he need- ed for bush-crashing his way around the most in- timidating rapids. At 76, he’d spent 28 years exploring the more
remote wild places in Canada, so often going alone because he enjoyed doing things his own way, and according to his own schedule.
It was here, facing the tormented wave action, that my hero Herb sat at the doorstep of his
final minute. Trough those years he paddled a 60-pound fi-
breglass decked canoe, pushing it with an eight- foot, double-bladed paddle. It was seaworthy in whitewater and ultimately reliable, like all his simple and tough equipment; there was no GPS or satellite phone in this man’s boat. I should admit that Herb was my hero. I encountered him every year at the Wilderness
Canoe Association Symposium in Toronto, that winter gathering of leathery women, fellow ad- venturers and earnest wannabes, all of them look- ing for a mid-winter fix of vicarious wandering. Most years, Herb was a featured speaker, ex-
plaining how he had spent his summer to hun- dreds of eager listeners. With perfect timing and a wit as dry as old Chianti he was a master story- teller and always left me wondering how a solitary traveller could so polish the gift of humour. I had travelled many of the same rivers as Herb.
I often felt a schoolboy urge to approach him and tell him so, but I always left his bent and weath- ered figure more or less alone in those crowds. I felt that iconic man who was so at ease being by himself didn’t need to know me beyond a smile and a nod. Or maybe I was intimidated. Herb had gained a reputation of being somewhat of an aristocratic
tripper. He was good at what he did and he ex- pected others to be also. Emigrating to Canada after the Second World
War, Herb wandered through railroad, mining and West Coast logging jobs, sometimes living hungry and homeless, seeing it all as part of his grand life adventure. When he did settle down it was in Bur- lington, Ontario, where he earned a post-graduate degree and became head of the biology lab pro- gram at McMaster University. But as anyone who visited Herb during the win-
ter months could tell from the strata of maps that covered the tables in his house, an important part of his being lived far off in the silent places only canoes can reach. He was enamoured of the harsh- ness of Labrador and northern Quebec, pulled to their wild rivers time after time by his curiosity, but carried through by his unlimited self-reliance. Herb’s extensive writings, derived from his trip
journals, reveal a man touched by the eons involved in shaping immense landscapes. He seemed to have had a contentedly humble sense of his place in the grand scheme of time. Perhaps that’s why it was easy for him to be alone out there. Two days before Herb’s final afternoon, crash-
ing waves had driven him to shore to share a campsite with two other paddlers. One of the men, Jose Joven, remembers be-
ing ensnared by the stranger’s recollections of a life spent adventuring as Herb’s narrative thread looped back to old companions and the beauti- ful places he’d been. When they parted the next
Herb demanded his gear be functional, not fancy. PHOTO: TONI HARTING
34 n
C ANOE ROOT S spring 2007
PHOTO: BILL NESS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60